


trust

by putarrilla



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-08-31 19:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8591167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/putarrilla/pseuds/putarrilla
Summary: He is tired from fighting so hard and she was never particularly good at being happy.Somehow, they find their way to each other.Neither of them see it coming, but their team do.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know Kurt/Nas is a touchy subject in the fandom. But, well, I decided to give them a try.  
> This is my first Blindspot fanfiction, so please be gentle if Kurt is OOC.  
> Also, I started writing 'trust' waaay before 2x06, and because of that pretty much everything is not canon  
> Anyways, hope you give this a go and enjoy.

The first who notices something is shifting, is Zapata. She doesn’t comment on it. Doesn’t really know what it is that she sees, so there would be no point in saying anything.

Kurt has always been stubborn. Since the day she went to work in the team, she’d been sure of it. And it wasn’t as if he was often wrong, so most times they all just went along. Mayfair held him back a bit, majorly due to him seeing the woman as a mentor.

So Tasha has never seen anyone go head to head with him. Not more than once, that is.

But Nas apparently doesn’t care about that. Apparently isn’t mindful of his temper.

They argue every other day. Fervently. Disagreeing in a course of action on a tattoo-case, making snarky remarks.

Neither one swallows it for long, only waiting for the team to leave the room in the best scenario.

And despite that, when Patterson is giving them more data, when they are heading for a lead spot, when a superior bursts in to reprimand someone, Kurt is always beside the woman.

Zapata always thought they would end up sleeping together and move on, because a fire so big could be either of two things: hate or desire. Sometimes both.

However, when Weller goes too far, she sees something flash through Nas’ eyes that doesn’t remotely seem like rancor.

When Kurt apologizes to the short woman in front of the whole group (in quiet whispers exchanged by a corner of Patterson’s lab, not meant for them to hear, but in front of them, regardless) she knows the hatred doesn’t come from him, either.

It scares her, and truthfully she should feel sorry for Jane, but the green-eyed brunette doesn’t deserve the man, not after everything, not after Mayfair.

She doesn’t comment on it, because it isn’t her business and she isn’t sure, but her gut tells her that things are changing, morphing and every time she sees Kurt sneaking a furtive look at Nas, she feels something similar to when she used to bet. Exhilarating, but with high stakes of losing control over.

* * *

 He knows Zapata notices something, because he does, too. And he isn’t quick enough to see the glances and connect the dots between the fighting and the united front as co-leaders. He only notices when the notes start showing up.

He is early and he sees it on Kurt’s desk, through the glass. A cup of coffee. Steaming hot and a soft blue post-it note glued on it.

Reade has always been curious, curious enough to try and go out with Weller’s sister, foolish too, foolish enough to fall for the blonde.

So he cranes his neck enough to try and take a look at what is written on the paper. He is curious and foolish, but his sight is not that good.

When Kurt arrives, not ten minutes later, and sees the cup and the note, Edgar hears the man laugh.

But his boss doesn’t go looking for whoever left the cup. Just sits and takes sips from the drink in spaced times.

Reade is curious and foolish and he really wants to know what’s going on, but he holds back and the day goes by. It’s not until the next day, when Nas comes into Patterson’s lab a bit after them, a cup almost identical to the one Kurt had been given, that he understands it.

The woman is distracted and hasn’t taken the post-it off, so he finally gets to see what it says.

Only there is nothing written on it. Two simple drawings instead. And he doesn’t understand the message and it means his two bosses have an inside joke. He tells Tasha about it because she’s his partner and he can’t think of anyone else.

“They’ll probably fuck.” The brunette mumbles over lunch, a shrug following the sentence and yeah, that’s something he can guess but, somehow, it feels much  more dangerous, different in a way it hadn’t felt when Jane had come along and messed his friend’s judgement.

“They are not just _flirting_. I’ve been his wing man before. It’s not the same.”

“I know.” Zapata says, rolling a pea around her plate, almost defeated.

It goes on. Every day, in turns, either Kurt or Kamal sip fresh coffee while they take on a new case.

When Nas disappears during a burst in, it’s been going on long enough for Weller to be scared and angry and desperate and not show it at all if not by the set of his jaw.

* * *

 

Despite being a scientist, despite being overly rational, Patterson sometimes is stupidly lead by her feelings. She doesn’t quite understand them, tries to shove them deep down, especially after David.

When Jane came back, she’d swallowed things down. When she’d learned that Mayfair was gone, when it had really been confirmed, it hadn’t been a shock, but it had stung.

When she sees the coffee, it takes her all of thirty seconds to crack the message. Kurt has left it on a nearby desk, cup empty and post-it still attached to it. He’s talking to Jane so Patterson analyzes the soft blue paper.

Two images.

Something resembling a pacifier and a shoe.

Pacifier equals babies, that is instant.

The shoe makes her think of onesies and that’s not it, she knows it.

And then she sees the inclination of the shoe, a bit bent as if-

_Baby steps._

Patterson wants to smile, she really does but then she looks over at Kurt and Jane and it breaks her heart. Because the brunette had lied and deceived and she was going to tear Weller apart all over again.

So she doesn’t smile. She turns away from the cup and back to her computer.

She tells Robert about it later that night, while they eat Chinese take out on her couch and _Predador_ plays on TV.

The doctor gives her a mischievous smirk, tells her that Kurt is smarter than that. Tells her to watch out for a fight.

Which is ridiculous, really. There are fights everywhere she looks in her line of work.

She doesn’t demand him to be clearer, though. She likes a challenge.

So she waits.

And, truly, it only happens a week later, but it does happen.

She cracks another tattoo, as usual, and she explains the details to the team, as usual, and what’s different, from all the other cases for the past month is that Nas gives them orders, clear ones, sensible and risky but effective. And Weller had been in a mood and it results on him disagreeing with the NSA agent, who doesn’t back down at his furred brow and crossed arms. It results in the raising of voices until Kamal notices the rest of the team is still there.

Results in the woman giving the final word, walking out of the room and Kurt telling them to do it.

The mission is dangerous and Patterson’s ears are sharp throughout, guiding as needed, Nas with eyes glued on the screen playing the camera installed on Reade’s vest.

Things work out and they get the guy, not as many killed as she’d have expected.

Weller comes back fuming and Nas doesn’t really say anything before following the man into his office.

It’s not polite, not even ethical, but she sticks around Zapata’s desk a bit more than necessary then to just handle the woman some files.

It calms her, to notice how her teammates also take long glances at their bosses clearly arguing inside Kurt’s sound proof glass room.

Later, over drinks, when some strange sort of relieve is settled deep in her belly, Tasha tells her that they (Reade and his partner, not Jane too, because it would be cruel, to share ideas with the woman) suspect something might be up with Nas and Weller.

Not yet, not at that very instant, but something that might blow up out of a sudden.

She agrees and Nas is hard and has a sharp sense of humor, but Patterson doesn’t think her friend is that different.

And it’s because of that, because of the notion that it may be a good path for Kurt, that she feels her stomach drop when she finds the bug in Robert’s office.

That notion, the soft whisper of _baby steps_ in her brain makes her want to cry as she tells Weller that she thinks Nas has been spying on them.

* * *

 

If there’s one thing left of her own, is her ability to read people.

She knows that Kurt has slipped almost completely out of her reach when Patterson talks to him in private and he walks away from the blonde with a look almost exactly as the one she saw in his eyes that night she begged and he screamed and cried and handcuffed her.

She knows she’s almost lost him for good when he doesn’t head in her direction with that haunted look, he heads for Nas.

Jane knew she should have let him go while he had driven her back to the quartel, still with her hands bound.

Jane knew she should have let him go when Allie told her he was going to be a dad.

Jane knows he has begun to free himself when Nas meets his eyes while he goes to her and the whole squad watches.

She feels her insides knot together but she doesn’t say a thing because it’s not like she has a right to mourn him.

They watch the fight go through Kurt’s glass doors, they go in when he calls them. They listen and they learn about Nas and Jane relates to the shorter woman in a way she doesn’t want to, shouldn’t want to because Kamal is helping Kurt get away from her.

She shouldn’t want to defend Nas, but she does, because she had needed someone to speak up for her when everything came clean and she sat on that bright room with so many things attached to her body.

It feels like pulling teeth and she notices how their bosses begin to stand at different corners of the room, how the NSA agent has shaggy shoulders and loses a bit of the spark in her dark brown gaze.

It feels like pulling teeth but one day Tasha is held hostage and no one can get a clear shot, so Kamal convinces the suspect to trade in, tells him that she’s more valuable than just an agent.

It feels like pulling teeth, but Nas stalls while surrendering her guns to the criminal, waiting for what they later realise is a safe distance for Zapata before turning and stabbing the guy’s neck.

It’s a shock, really, but the body falls with a tud and everything is silent for a long moment.

Kurt is the first one to abandon his position, run to the brunette and Jane feels her chin tremble, feels her gut wrenching because she’s seeing the man she loves run away.

Somehow, after that, things go back to shifting, as she heard Reade mumble one day to Patterson.

She sees the cups of coffee and she sees Nas having lunch on that big clear-glass room with a snickering blue eyed guy.

When the team is talking through a case and Kurt stops nibbling on his bagel to comment something, his elbow bent and the pastry held midair, when Kamal steals the food to take a bite and the man doesn’t even blink twice, Jane knows that it’s not a question of letting Kurt Weller go anymore, but how long it will take him to free himself completely.

* * *

He is tired from fighting. Truly. He is.

He should be tired _of_ fighting, but he just feels drained out.

He is tired from fighting his dad all those years, a silver ghost still hanging on his shoulders. He is tired from fighting for Taylor, tired from fighting the brightly colored memories. He is tired from fighting for whatever it is Jane and him were.

He is tired from fighting.

And, lately, it seems like every effort he makes into carrying on, takes everything from him.

So Nas drives him insane.

The woman, new to the team, unknown, makes calls for their cases without even gazing in his direction.

And it nags him and nags him and nags him until they end up in his office, arguing about chain of command and respect for tradition and he walks away with a headache and a heavy conscience for screaming.

He’s tired of screaming.

Has been since Jane tried to explain and he couldn’t listen, still felt Taylor’s bones in his hands.

He apologizes every single time and it’s not like the woman makes it seem as if she’s hurt, almost always cracks a joke to brush his words away.

It works.

Until it doesn’t.

Until Nas drives him insane on the same day his sister calls him, crying for their father’s sins and he can’t go help one of the few people he still considers family.

It works until he is cruel and cuts in on Kamal’s turn to scream at him. It works until he spills words that shouldn’t have been put together, let alone voiced.

Their weird, fighting-apologizing dynamic works until Nas takes a step back from him, brow furrowed, eyes shining and then proceeds on leaving the room.

He tries not to feel guilty, and for a while he doesn’t. But then he snaps at Patterson. _Fucking Patterson_. And he mumbles an apology and goes to find his co-commander.

Nas doesn’t look at him when he steps into that place she’d come to call office. Nas doesn’t even seem to notice his presence if not by the tightening of her jaw.

“I’m sorry.”

And there’s no reply and he’s an idiot and he’s so tired. So tired from carrying his father’s ghost.

“Look, I went too far. It hasn’t been a great day.”

“I think I’m pulling myself off the case.” The voice is raspy and accented and the woman still has her gaze fixed on the computer screen.

“Because of a fight? C’mon-”

“No, Kurt. Because you don’t respect my decisions.” Finally it happens. Finally she looks at him and blue meets brown and he’s a stupid son of a bitch.

“You’re a good leader.” He leans his hands on the back of a chair, bents his spine so he can hold her gaze.

“NSA has many more.”

“You’re dedicated to this case. To bringing Sandstorm down. You’re involved. We won’t find anyone more fit for the job.”

“So how do you suggest we keep doing this?” She shakes her head and he tries to identify what it is that shifts behind her eyes. He can’t. “Because I’m honestly getting tired of this constant button pushing.”

“Baby steps.”

He says it and she arches an eyebrow and he knows the woman wasn’t fully convinced about leaving, not for that reason. She was probably much more inclined to have him step down.

But she doesn’t say it and that’s progress, he thinks.

“ _Baby steps?_ ” She arches an eyebrow, her fingers still sit over the keyboard and that’s a warning, that’s a telltale sign that he may lose her attention at any given second.

“Just- a truce. Let’s call a truce.”

“We’ve made those plans before, look how much has changed.”

“So you _really_ want to give up on this operation?

Nas doesn’t answer, takes her hands away from the computer, brings them to massage her temples.

“Of course not, but-”

“Then we make it work.”

She looks into his eyes once more, breathes deeply and he wants to understand this woman, like he understands the rest of his team, but she’s impossible.

A small nod settles it and he smiles, extends his palm for her to shake and she seems doubtful as she accepts his gesture.

Her handshake is firm, regardless.

He sees the cup of coffee on his desk the following day and he laughs because, honestly, he’s so tired from fighting, but the warm liquid and the two drawings on the blue paper feel a bit like resting.

They don’t talk about it. They just move together and Nas gazes at him before making a call for the cases. It goes on and one day, one day he asks the woman if she wants to have lunch to go over some information and she tells him that she usually eats alone and he says that so does he.

And he gets himself thinking of ways to make her smirk, little comebacks and

_I’m NSA, I know everything_

_Except for how to mind your own business._

He catches himself sneaking glances at her while she stabs her salad with her fork and while she sometimes pulls that little lock of hair she insists on leaving out of her bun, behind her ear and he can see her whole face, open, secretive.

The team goes out for drinks one day and after a bit of persuasion from him, she agrees on tagging along.

He sees the way she laughs at a joke Reade tells and he sees the way Jane looks at him from across the booth.

He’s tired from fighting for Jane, and somehow Nas feels like a fresh breeze with her stubbornness and her little smirks and sharp tongue.

Kurt doesn’t quite know what it is that starts shifting around him, but he guesses it really settles when Allie comes to talk to him one day, belly finally growing and temper in full blast as she tells him to never go to her boss behind her back again.

It settles when he nods, pulls Allie aside, to a vacant hall few people use, one that leads to Nas’ office and he hugs the woman who carries his child, lays a hand on the stomach and feels the kick against his palm.

“I know you want to protect me.” Allie whispers, eyes soft but posture firm. “But I’m aware of which risks I’ll take. I don’t need you to _recommend_ my boss to give me an early leave.”

“I’m sorry.” He mumbles, looking at the ground and it is almost comical, really, the way he knows it was stupid and the way he will just accept Allie’s lecture without even contesting.

It settles when Allie kisses his cheek, looks over his shoulder, waves at whoever she sees there and goes away.

He turns and catches Nas’ leaving silhouette and he follows, can’t help but follow.

He doesn’t really understand what he’s doing until he walks in that dark painted room and sees her shuffling some papers around and

“Do you wanna go out sometime?”

The woman stops. Looks at him.

“Go out?”

“Yeah, I know this really good place nearby. They have great pasta.” He smiles and she chuckles because one late night they had ordered takeout from this italian place while they tried to crack a suspect’s code and she looked at ease and soft while eating her carbonara pasta and had mumbled something about guilty pleasures.

“What for?” She tilts her head and he can see it in her eyes that she got it, she just wants to hear him say it.

“A date.” He smirks, lifts an eyebrow and he watches as she turns slightly brighter. “Is that a blush?”

“No.” She deadpans and meets his gaze and he makes sure he shows her that he isn’t buying that. “And fine.”

“Is tomorrow good?”

“If we don’t catch another case, sure.”

“Eight?”

“Eight is overrated. Let’s make it nine.”

He shakes his head slightly.

 _Stubborn_.

“Text me the address, then?”

“Yeah.”

And she does and they don’t catch a case and by eight thirty he’s putting on his suit and what is he doing, really? Things could go downhill so easily. So so so easily because they had managed to hold off on fighting until that very day and she hadn’t told him that they weren’t going anymore and he’s an optimistic fool.

He rings her doorbell half expecting her to be in pajamas, looking at him with that _what the hell_ expression she has saved for the days he is especially stupid.

He feels his heart beat a little bit harder when she opens the door dressed in a body-hugging purple dress.

“What?” She asks while she turns her back to him, locking her apartment. “Thought I wouldn’t show up?”

“Not after this afternoon.”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d come, either, so that makes us even.” She smiles and he smirks and the evening is good and her plate does look great when it arrives. He pleads and snickers and looks at her pointedly until she lets him taste her pasta. They linger and he eats dessert with small bites.

When he drops her off, he isn’t quite sure what he’s doing (like he hasn’t been sure since he asked her out) but she stands on her tiptoes and kisses the corner of his mouth and it’s like a programmed reaction, really, how his hands fly to her waist, how he turns his head and kisses her completely and how she lets her fingers play with the hair in the base of his neck.

She tastes like the bubblegum she had thrown away on the trash bin at the entrance of her building and faintly, gently like wine.

His palms slide to her back and he really wants to kiss her more, can feel his abdomen liquid and excited but she pulls away, breathes with their faces still close, pecks his lips a couple of times, hand now framing his jaw and her touch is small, warm.

“It was a good night.” Nas tells him, planting her feet completely to the ground again, her forehead levelled with his chin despite her heels.

“It really was.” He smiles and she leans over to kiss him again before turning and disappearing inside her home.

Kurt isn’t really sure on where they stand when he leaves, but the next day she acts like things are the same, so he does, too.

Then, the week is calm and on a Thursday, he is doing paperwork when she pokes her head inside his office.

“I’ve got a film I’ve been wanting to see, wanna come over?”

She doesn’t look too worried, so he nods and goes back to signing his name before she’s closed the door completely.

He’s in her apartment by seven and he finds her with an apron tied around her middle and her hair up, as usual, but with no locks left behind, covering a side of her, and bound by a clip, like she might let it loose once she’s done cooking.

He tries to help because he’s a great cook, but she snaps his hand away, tells him that it’s _her_ recipe and he’ll just mess it up.

“There’s wine in the refrigerator.” Nas says, steering the risotto.

He serves himself, pours some for her as well and when she’s letting the food steam itself ready, she leans against the counter, a hand on her bent elbow, the other one holding her glass as she takes a sip.

“What are we watching?” He asks, drink long finished and cup on the table.

“Silver Linings Playbook.” She smirks into her cup.

“You haven’t watched it?” He remembers seeing the film with Sarah when it first came out.

“No.” She says and soon enough they sit down to eat.

He’d seen Nas putting pepper into the risotto and while she whispers that she hopes it is good, coy for the first time that night, he takes a bite, says it is delicious, but then

“Did you-uhm-” He clears his throat, shifting in his seat and she looks startled. “Put pe- pepper in this?” He coughs and coughs and leans over and in an instant she’s by his side, calling his name, her hand on his shoulder.

“Are you allergic?” She asks and he nods while still coughing and truthfully, he’s a little out of breath. “I’m sorry. Oh, God. I’m so sorry. Do you have an epipen, something?” And she really looks worried and he can’t handle it, he starts laughing and her face slowly falls.

She slaps his bicep and calls him asshole, but snickers after a few minutes of sulking.

He tells her of when he had just joined the team and used to play pranks on Mayfair, how the woman would threaten to take his badge if he ever did it again.

She tells him that her brother used to do the same when they were teenagers until he tried to fake falling down the stairs and ended up with a broken leg.

“Is he in the US as well?” Kurt asks, finishing his plate and pouring himself his second glass of wine.

“No, he passed away a few years back.” She forces a tight smile before averting her gaze from his.

He takes her hand, manages to make brown meet blue once more.

“I’m sorry.”

She nods and he helps her put the dishes in the sink before they settle down on the couch.

The movie is good, and he makes comments throughout. She doesn’t tell him to shut up, because she does the same. Half way through it, she goes to lean her head on his shoulder. (Because her feet are already tucked under herself and his arm is already thrown across her back.) She lowers her head for a second but then shifts, pulls the clip off of her hair before settling down again and he had never seen her with her locks down except for that gallery event. It’s a beautiful sight.

When it ends, he lets a low chuckle free for the grand finale of it all and she lifts her head again to look at him, eyes a bit closed, frowning and it hits him again where he is, how they are, together in her couch and he had been so invested on the last scenes of the movie that he had almost felt somewhere else.

But she gazes at him and she snaps quicker than he does, because she lifts a hand, frames his jaw and kisses him.

And the kiss is deep and strong and he uses his arm around her to pull her closer.

He drops his other palm to the space between her waist and her breast and she bites his lower lip.

Nas drives him insane and now he’s learning why.

She straddles him and they should take things more slowly, they really should, but her scent is all around him and she’s moving her hips the slightest bit. So he drops his hands to her arse and she laces her fingers in the laps of his collar.

He moves his lips from hers, lays them on her neck and she arches her back, her hips grit and he trails down her skin, alternates between kissing and licking and softly biting and she’s wearing a v-neck. _A fucking v-neck_ and the view is glorious.

And yeah, okay, they should take it more slowly but she pulls her t-shirt off and he opens his belt and it ends up they don’t even move to her bedroom. They do it right there and she rides him because she wants to and he is not against it at all, feels his heart rate quicken by the image of her, atop him, bra still on, head thrown back, lips a bit apart and swollen.

They change passes. Slow and hard, fast and soft. She comes and he follows three moments later. She hides her face on his neck and he closes his hands around his elbows, arms around her, squeezing tight.

He feels her gently nibbling at his earlobe as they come down from the high and her skin is smooth, exquisitely contrasting with his own.

Nas fixes her posture a bit and he slips out of her.

She doesn’t meet his eyes, but lets her thumbs caress his stubble, run past his bottom lip and he puts a lock of her hair behind her ear.

“So.”

“We don’t need to talk about it.” She says, gives him another one of those tight smiles and he really is clueless when it comes to her.

“What do you mean?”

The woman shakes her head, kisses him again, like she’s trying to slow time and he allows for a while because her lips are soft and kissing her seems like resting.

He pulls away.

“We got it out of our systems, right?” Her voice is raspy and she still won’t look at him and what is this?

“That’s what we’ve been doing to you?”

She chuckles, lets her fingers run through his face once more.

“Do you honestly want to tell me you want a _relationship_?”

He chuckles, too.

“Can you get up, please?” Kurt asks and brown meets blue and why? Why are her eyes a bit shiny if she just wanted to _get it out of her system?_

She stands from him and he gets dressed. Doesn’t look at her and he gets his coat from the hack in front of the door and he leaves and what the fuck happened to him?

He doesn’t sleep that night.

And he sees her the next morning, put together, as if nothing happened and

_We got it out of our systems, right?_

He brings her a cup of coffee on impulse, and he sets it on her desk without a good morning or any words at all, for that matter. She calls his name once, but it sends a shiver down his spine because it reminds the soft moans and pleas she made the previous night. So he doesn’t answer and they work as best as they can.

Jane gets shot in a case and he has to be the one to keep pressure on her wound as the ambulance comes. Jane tells him she’s sorry for everything. Jane begs and begs because the woman thinks she’s dying, he thinks and a sort of desperation takes over his chest.

Jane is Jane and Jane can’t die. She can’t.

They all wait around the hospital to get news and Nas doesn’t sit by his side the way he desperately wants her to.

The doctor tells them that Jane is fine, stable and he feels like breathing for the first time since he heard that gunshot.

And Nas nods at him, tells Kurt to keep her informed and then, then she leaves.

It goes on.

They push forward.

One week later Patterson finds the bug and while the blonde explains her suspicions, Weller shakes his head. Because _no_ , that isn’t it. It can’t be.

He’s tired of doubting his judgement, though.

So he turns on his heels, walks towards the end of the hall, meant for the NSA agent’s office, but she’s there already, looks at him as if she knew something was wrong.

Maybe she did, maybe she discovered that her bug was gone and wanted to probe if anyone knew why.

He heads for his own office, because he feels a fire so big, so blinding, that he doesn’t care who sees them fighting.

She closes the door behind herself and he is so glad for FBI’s increasing technology, for the soundproof glass room, because he starts screaming.

“You were spying on us?!”

Nas’ expression doesn’t fall. She doesn’t even flinch at his tone.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t give me that crap! Patterson found the bug, Nas! And in Borden’s office? Really? You had to go that deep?”

“It wasn’t my choice.” The fact that she doesn’t try to deny it again, the fact that she still holds his gaze makes him want to throw up. Because he hadn’t _fucked_ her. It hadn’t been that. It hadn’t, but it should have been because cups of coffee and poorly drawn pacifiers meant shit, apparently.

“You’re hilarious.” He shakes his head, looks away because he can’t stand to see her at that very second. “What wasn’t your choice? Planting a bug in your new _team_? Listening in on our sessions with the department _shrink?_ Or sleeping with me?”

Kurt looks back and that fire low in his stomach grows and grows and finally that calm façade of hers slips. She seems struck.

“ _Don’t go there_.” Her voice is a warning, but he’s so mad. So so so mad. She had betrayed him. Another one, at that. But she’d been worse than Jane. Jane who didn’t know who she was. Nas Kamal was completely aware of her surroundings. She let him fall for her anyway.

“Why? You stooped low enough to _bug our therapy_.”

She is close enough to hit him, he thinks that it may be better if she did. But she licks her lips instead, looks down and her eyes are dark and are those tears? Are those fucking tears?

She doesn’t reply and he feels this tight grip in his chest and his fingers twitch because they remember how the skin on her back had felt.

He paces. Because he isn’t sure if he wants to yell some more or cry or stomp out of the room.

“Are you done?” Her voice is deep and he can’t say anything back. So he doesn’t. “Call the team in, then. I’m not explaining this again.”

His hands shake as he pulls his door open, he doesn’t meet Jane’s gaze as she, Zapata, Reade and Patterson walk in.

“I’m guessing Patterson already filled you in.” Nas says, leaning against his desk, arms crossed and eyes anywhere else besides them.

She waits a couple of seconds and he knows what he wants to do. He wants to go back before they had called the truce. He wants to let her pull herself from the case, tell her she really should go.

“I did come here to work with you to bring Sandstorm down. But it was a double mission.” He feels the uneasiness in the room as she starts to talk and he wants to scream and go back to before, when he didn’t feel the need to lead her away and tell her it’s alright, that she doesn’t need to explain, that it will work out. “After Mayfair and Carter, NSA needed to make sure your team was clear.”

“We’ve gone through interrogations already. Don’t you people talk to each other?” Zapata snaps.

“We do.” Nas says, breathes deeply, seems to look for the words.

She means to carry on, Tasha goes to interrupt again, but

“Let her speak” Jane says and all eyes turn to her for a second before Zapata closes her mouth.

 “Truthfully it was more about me than anything else. I’m too loyal, for my superior’s taste.” Nas chuckles, shifts and he wants to storm out of the room. “In my line of work, we can only be devoted to this country and its safety. Nothing else. I have a tendency to get attached to my fellow agents. This was a test to see if I still deserved my position.”

“Well, it seems you’ve passed.” Reade says, leaves and Kurt wants to go, too, but he can’t. Because cups of coffee and pacifiers mean shit, apparently, but he’s still the superior and his team comes first.

“It had a due date, the wiring. It would end next week.” Nas mumbles, after a couple of seconds. He can’t keep thinking about her as Nas. That’s too personal. And he can’t do personal anymore. His team comes first and that will never happen if he keeps thinking about the woman in front of him as _Nas_.

He doesn’t sleep again that night. Manages to doze off for fifty minutes. And that’s it.

Kurt goes to work and stands on the opposite side of where he usually stays when listening to a new case’s details. He stands to the other side because Kamal is still where she always is and his place was beside her and he can’t handle that anymore.

And he goes on and on and on. Day and night and in betweens. He just keeps going and then Allie is seven months along and she has an ultrasound made with one of those 3D machines and they get to see their child and it makes him smile. He feels prickling in his eyes because if there’s anything worth pushing forward for, it’s the small baby growing inside Allie.

The team is fine, he guesses. They arrest the _bad_ guys and get themselves in bad situations and when he has to partner up with Kamal, he does. They do the work because there’s no time to overthink when they are in the field.

But then, then they get a case and stumble across a maniac. He disguises when they go looking for him and Kurt tries to warn Zapata, he tries to scream Tasha, but when his voice forms the words, it’s too late.

The suspect already has an arm around the woman’s neck, gun to her temple and everyone stops, everyone freezes because the guy got off in killing people in the open, in grabbing someone random and making their company watch as he pulled the trigger.

They don’t have back up and they can’t get a clear shot. Reade is desperate, to be honest. Keeps telling the man to let Tasha go. That he won’t get out of there alive otherwise.

Kurt sees a sickening sort of spark in their suspect’s eyes.

The man pulls the hammer of the gun down and Kurt can’t hear anything, his blood flow is deafening.

But he sees the commotion by the corner of his eyes. When someone starts to approach the criminal, when the guy starts to snicker and nod and when he realizes who the person is, he wants to throw up.

Kamal is trading herself for Tasha and Kurt honestly didn’t think she was that stupid.

As soon as Zapata is free, she runs for them and takes a position, tries to get a clear shot.

The guy grabs the NSA agent in a different way, whispers in her ear in a way that sends hot flares down Weller’s spine.

Their suspect had had a type, he knows that.

Kamal starts taking off her vest, probably due to the guy’s demand.

Things happen in a blink, really.

He almost misses it.

The way Kamal takes hold of the wrist from the hand that holds the gun, twists it, shoves a knife in the place where the man’s neck meets his shoulder.

Weller almost misses it. But he doesn’t.

He watches with his heart in his throat and he watches as the body falls heavily down and everything is still.

Kurt doesn’t think about bugs and trust. He runs to her.

“Are you okay?” He shouts, riffle already to his side. And his hands go to her upper arms, his eyes run through her and yes, yes, she’s fine she tells him before shrugging his hold off.

She doesn’t talk to anyone in the team after that, closes herself in her office and he can’t prevent his mind on going overboard, creating scenarios where she isn’t fast enough and that shitbag kills her and what would happen then?

When they are done with paperwork, Reade drives Tasha home, Patterson stays in her lab and Kurt can’t help it, doesn’t know what he’s doing, like he never does when it comes to Na- Kamal.

The door slips open to the dark room and she’s sitting in her desk, placed in a corner not seen by the entrance. Her head in her hands, her breaths long and concentrated.

“What you did was stupid.” He says and she takes a couple of seconds to reply.

“I know.” Her face is honest, open and he takes a seat on the chair beside her. Sees the glass with scotch sitting abandoned and he doesn’t overthink it, he just picks it up and takes a gulp.

“The man was unstable. If you were an instant slower-”

“I know, Kurt. But who would the team rather have dead? Me or Zapata?”

He looks at her and does she really believe he would want her to die?

“Neither.” He says.

She chuckles, shakes her head, shifts her gaze straight ahead.

“No one has looked me in the eyes for weeks. I’m sorry if I have a difficult time believing that.”

“I’m looking. Right now.” Brown meets blue and she presses her lips together before letting a breath go through her mouth.

“Maybe they are right. I don’t deserve this job.”

“You fucked up. With the bug.” He says and he lets himself wonder for a millisecond before putting a hand on the back of her chair. “But this _is_ your team. What you did was stupid, but incredibly brave.”

She nods, rubs her face and when she pulls her fingers away, he sees she’s shaking.

It’s something that overcomes him. It’s something he wouldn’t know how to explain, but he hadn’t been this close to her in weeks. So he leans forward, kisses her and it takes a moment, but she returns it.

She returns it and he had missed kissing her, missed her taste and-

 _Nas_ pulls away, holds his face.

“Kurt-” She mumbles, shakes her head.

“Do you want this?” He asks. Because he was so so so mad for the wiring and for pushing him away, but she was only doing her job and she could have died today, trying to save one of their own.

He feels her nodding, but he needs to hear it.

“Yeah.” She whispers and kisses him again.

Kissing Nas Kamal feels like resting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to say that the finale killed me.  
> Hope you like this chapter.

She was never particularly good at being happy.

Well, with someone else, that is.

She’s fine by herself, a bit boring at times, but otherwise fine.

So when she tells Kurt to come over one night, Nas tries hard not to freak out.

Because it’s Kurt Weller, for Pete’s sake and Kurt Weller is a sneaky bastard who doesn’t care about how tidy her place looks.

Maybe she’s putting pillows into their places just for something to do.

Yes, that’s it.

Never particularly good at being happy or staying unoccupied.

He said he’d bring food, so the only things she had to worried about were glasses and silverware.

She’d taken a shower the second she’d gotten home. Didn’t quite rush on it, washed her hair even, blew dry it as well. She put on nice underwear just because and she’d made sure she had an extra toothbrush also just because.

There was still half an hour to go until he showed up.

So she stands in her living room, pillows thrown to the floor while she tries to rematch the patterns.

Her doorbell rings and she gives a quick look to the watch on the cable device.

Ten past eight.

Nas actually managed to lose track of time.

Seriously?

She lets him in and sees how he runs his gaze through the living room.

“Did we get an earthquake or something?”

“Don’t start.”

“What happened?”

“I was bored.”

“Never heard of zapping through channels?” He smirks as she takes the bags from his hands.

“As I’ve said, don’t start.” Nas moves to her living room, sets the bags on her coffee table before picking up the cushions and throwing them on the couch.

Kurt sets napkins and forks on the table as well, before helping her.

There aren’t many pillows, maybe six or so, but it’s a big couch and she likes shopping for furniture.

They eat. And he apparently has a good instinct for food as well, because hers is delicious. He asks to try it halfway through it.

“Sorry, but it’s spicy and you’re allergic.”

He looks at her likes she’s unbelievable and she pushes the warmth in her belly down.

To their credit, they manage to watch a whole episode of Game of Thrones in relative steadiness.

But it’s Kurt.

And while the credits roll, she turns her head to look at him and he is distracted, an arm over her shoulders, fingers playing with a strand of her hair as he gazes to a fixed spot.

“Penny for your thoughts?” She mumbles and he grins.

“Thinking about the last time I got a day off.”

“Having a ninety-five percent arrest rate has its perks.”

They don’t have to work the next day, which was partially the reason she asked him to come.

“I guess it does.” He chuckles in the back of his throat. “Sawyer was around three the last time. Sarah was in town and we took him to the zoo.”

“And how long ago was that?”

“Well, he’s ten now, so seven years.”

“You’re old.”

“You’re one to talk.” He smiles and her belly is warm and liquid and she lays a finger on his chin, makes him turn his head towards her. And she’s done it a considerable amount of times already, but she kisses him. Because Kurt Weller is a bastard who makes her chuckle and smile and is quite a good kisser.

They make it to her bedroom this time around and the fine underwear proves worthy when he pulls her tank top off and his pupils dilate.

And she wants to cry because sex with him is even better the second time around.

After, when they are under the sheets and he’s running his hand through her back, she bites her lower lip, and she lets her fingers glaze over his ear, his hairline, his shoulder.

“When is your birthday?” He asks and she frowns.

“October the first, why?”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.” She whispers and their gazes are fixed in one another and the tug in her heart shouldn’t be there. She shouldn’t be answering these things so freely.

“Did you ever have a pet?”

“Two dogs. A turtle.”

“Favorite book?”

“Why all these questions?” She inches closer, a slow smirk starting to grow.

“You know about my dad, Taylor, Jane, even Sandstorm.” He sighs, lets his roaming palm rest on her waist. “While I know that you like pasta, was born in Pakistan and that your temper is something to be reckoned with.”

Nas chuckles. Because she can. Because it’s true.

“You know about my brother.”

“Yeah.”

“And that I have a purple dress.”

“That’s surprising?”

“I mostly wear black to work, so I’d consider that powerful knowledge.”

He laughs. She feels the vibrations against her cheek and she buries her face in his neck. He smells of sweat. And of Kurt.

“But I really wanna know your favorite book.”

She smiles into his skin. Hums and she’s so freaking sleepy.

“To Kill a Mockingbird.” Nas says and she can almost _feel_ how his brow furrows.

“To Kill a Mockingbird?”

“Yes, Mockingbird.”

“You?”

“What? It’s a good book with nice lessons.” And she giggles and she knows he grins and she shouldn’t feel so warm, shouldn’t feel so liquid.

They go quiet and his hand goes back to caressing her back.

She’s so freaking sleepy.

So she sits up a moment, grabs the first shirt she sees on the floor, which, of course, is his and pulls her panties from the foot of the bed.

He’s looking at her as she gets dressed.

“What? I can’t well sleep in the nude now, can I?”

He chuckles, extends his arm for her to lie down where she was, fitted against his side.

“Do you want me to go?” He mumbles when she’s almost out and no, no she doesn’t. She doesn’t want him to even move except for the soothing circuit of his palm.

She shakes her head, pulls him a bit closer.

“Alright.” He breathes and her eyelids are heavy and she should want him to go, but she doesn’t. “Goodnight.”

Kurt Weller is a bastard who makes her chuckle and lulls her to sleep and kisses the crown of her head just as she’s about to doze off.

They go to the park the next day and she wears a red blouse and he keeps pulling at the buttons when she tries to put it on in the morning.

They decide not to tell the team, because it’s too early and they aren’t _dating_ , but they are seeing each other and they don’t want to mess things up.

But she gets used to sharing her food with him, so when he eats a bagel while they are going through a case, she doesn’t really think about how it will look to the others before taking the pastry out of his hands, stealing a bite.

She does see Jane looking at them, though.

And she tries to be a tad extra professional with the man for the rest of their work hours.

Nas was never particularly good at being happy, and one day Kurt is moody and she has a headache and they argue and she kicks him out.

Overreacting much?

She refuses to cry over someone she is not dating, so she cleans the errant tears before they even roll down her cheeks completely.

Her phone rings and rings and rings and she doesn’t answer because she is stubborn.

They get called in on the middle of the night, a body being found and directly connected to a tattoo.

She doesn’t have time to sort her hair, so she pulls a lazy ponytail and Kurt looks at her like she’s someone else entirely. They don’t get to talk. Because she avoids him as much as she can and because the body was of a woman and the woman had been heavily spanked, raped and then killed.

They don’t stop working and Patterson had still been on the lab when the victim was found, so around 4 p.m. the blonde picks a fight with Reade and Nas sends her to the crib, takes over for the tech.

Patterson comes back two hours later, back to her old self and, in thirty minutes, manages to crack the suspects identity.

And they figure out why there’s a lead for this on Jane’s body.

It’s a state senator.

As the scientist feeds them her discovery, she shakes and Zapata lays a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. Nas remembers then. How Patterson got kidnapped by a man not so long ago.

And despite that, the blue-eyed agent doesn’t only manage to find out who they are after, but where he is at that moment.

They get ready to burst in. Because another woman matching the victim’s characteristics had gone missing.

The address is of an old, isolated, small house.

So they only bring four extra gunmen to help out.

Truthfully, what happens, shouldn't have.

They clear the first floor.

Descend the stairs to the basement and the room is bigger than they would have expected. Spreading into multiple doors.

They are still to find the suspect or the new victim, though, so they start bursting into each door separately.

Reade finds the woman.

Patterson is sure the man is still there.

There are still doors to kick open.

Truthfully, what happens, shouldn’t have.

She goes into a room alone and she doesn’t see anything, but somehow, just as she’s about to scream _clear_ , she feels something press against the back of her head, hears someone whispering.

_Don’t move._

_Make a peep and I shoot._

And when the suspect manages to get out through a hidden door, her still at the other end of his gun, she wants to yell at the sky and she feels a sort of anger start deep in her belly.

They should have brought more back up, they should have been faster, they should have guessed that a senator wouldn’t be so easy to give up, not one with the conscience that the FBI is _this_ close in nailing him.

The room they step into has pillows on the walls, in the back of the same door they had walked through and it is sound proof, she knows, she knows and she wants to scream, she wants to yell because the son of a bitch makes her lose her weapons, her guns, and he ties her in a post.

What happens shouldn’t have. She knows that as he cuts open her shirt, as he presses the blade in her skin. She knows it shouldn’t happen, but it does.

She’s ready for the sharp pain, she is, she is, she can never _not_ be ready, working in what she does.

But the cut doesn’t come.

The man keeps mumbling to himself, keeps saying damn feds, keeps talking about making her scream, making them see and she watches him, makes sure her eyes are wide, seem scared because she starts working on her ties.

She’s been trained for this. She has.

But still, when the first kick comes, she inhales. On the second, to her side, she sets her jaw and closes her eyes, but she doesn’t scream because that’s what he wants, that’s what he _needs_ and if she doesn’t give in, if she stays mute, he’ll become desperate, stupid and the more stupid, the easier it will get.

She wants to say she hears her team calling out for her, worried, searching, going outside the house, trying to find her, but the man keeps kicking her and she wants to say she can feel her bones cracking, because that way he may be putting strength enough to get tired faster. But she doesn’t.

Nas waits it out.

Pain is a dream, she remembers what Jane said.

Five more minutes and he stops, turns around for his tools and she manages to undo the knot tying her hands. She manages to stand up and yeah, not a peep, she recalls, as she tries to take deep breaths and steps into the man’s direction.

She’d been trained for these kind of situations, she’d been trained for it.

Her chin still trembles from the kicks, though.

She grabs the sides of his face, twists her hold, breaks his neck.

His body falls on top of her and she lets out a yelp, at least. Because he’s dead and she’s not and she’s been trained for these situations, but the anger deep in her belly doesn’t diminish.

She pulls her shirt closed, pretends she hadn’t felt him grope her on the few seconds he had stopped with the kicking to breathe.

The fabric is ruined.

So she pulls it closed, gets her vest back on, trying to cover up, and she opens the soundproof door and when she steps out, Zapata and two of their extra men have their guns pointed at her.

Tasha’s eyes grow, her mouth hangs a bit open and their aim is lost.

She sits on the floor. Because she isn’t sure her bones are broken or if she’s bleeding internally, but she’s so tired. So angry.

“He’s dead.” She says and Zapata tells one of the agents to find Kurt, to call him back.

She’s so tired and so angry, but she’s saved herself, she’d gotten herself out because she’d been trained for it.

When she lets her eyelids close, however, there are still flashes of their criminal yelling and his feet against her body, and his face, angry in a different way than she is, yelling and spitting and when she opens her eyes again, she is almost in time to see Weller walking in.

His jaw is set but his brow is furred and he kneels down beside her and she is so angry, so tired, that when he asks what happened, she shakes her head.

They take her to the hospital. There are X-rays and pictures for evidence. The doctor tells her she has two cracked ribs even before he completes the examination.

It doesn’t surprise her. Because during the ride there, her adrenaline had dropped considerably and she felt like every breath was a stab.

Other than that, the elder man says, she’s fine.

“Thanks.” She mumbles, tries to smile at him. He’s kind as far as doctors go and he deserves to be treated in the same way. She meets his eyes, though, and she doesn’t think she pulls it off.

Reade offers to drive her home, but Kurt steps in, says that it won’t be necessary.

Nas wants to tell him not to make decisions for her, that she’s right there, but she doesn’t. She lets Weller drive her home instead.

They stop in a drugstore first. He tells her to stay in the car, but it’s dark out and the space is small and it reminds her too much of that tiny, soundproof room and no, no she’s not staying in the car.

The more she moves, the more it hurts, but she is not staying in the car. So she puts a tight grimace on her face, stands as straight as she can and leans into Kurt when the girl over the counter goes looking for the pain meds the nice doctor had prescribed.

When she gets home and heads for her room, he follows and says he’s taking a personal day the next morning to help her out.

“I’m not a sick child, Kurt. I’ll be fine.” She snaps. Tries to lift the spare sweater Zapata had lent her over her head. It doesn’t work. She feels her cracked ribs with an acute fire and holds back the yelp.

“Take your arms off first.” He says, side leaning against the threshold. He doesn’t move to help her and she doesn’t know if she’s thankful or if she’s up to fighting him.

She follows his suggestion, more mindful this time. And then the material is pooled around her neck and she’s defeated. She’s just so tired and the anger deep in her belly has yet to go away.

He goes to her, kneels down in front of her, pulls the thing off completely. Drops it by her side.

“I’m taking a personal day.” Kurt says, looking her in the eye. She isn’t sure if she’s up to fighting him. She does either way.

“You’re the head of the department. If you’re not there and I’m not there, what happens?”

“Reade is the senior agent, he takes over.”

“No.”

“Nas-”

“You show up here tomorrow and the only way you’ll get through the front door is if you knock it down.” Her voice is firm, she knows. And he sighs, runs a palm through his face.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

“I prefer strong minded.” She says as he stands and gets out of her way.

She manages to take a halfass shower.

When she comes back, he’s propped a few pillows up in her bed, put the painkillers in her nightstand.

She finds him in the living room, concentrated in his phone.

She doesn’t want to be alone, she doesn’t. Because going to bed means lights out and she knows, she knows that she won’t sleep either way, but she’s been trained for the situation and, yet, the thought of darkness makes the bruises in her abdomen hurt more.

Nas shouldn’t do it. Shouldn't voice what she wants to ask.

He notices her, standing there.

“There’s an ice pack ready in the freezer. Wasn’t sure how long you’d take.”

“Thank you.” She says, but doesn’t move.

He goes back to his phone. His lips pressed together and his brow furrowed and it gives him this almost pouty expression.

“Out with it.” She sighs.

“Can I at least spend the night?” He keeps not looking at her and keeps frowning and maybe that’s the way he is worried when he’s not sure he has the right to be. Because on that op, months ago now, when Allie was shot, he’d had the right. The woman was carrying his child.

But Nas isn’t carrying his child. She isn’t his _girlfriend_ because it isn’t a relationship, even if they are indeed seeing each other.

She nods.

Because she shouldn’t voice it and she doesn’t, in the end. He does it for them both.

The painkillers help. And the ice helps.

And some of the meds she took were strong, so she sleeps. Almost sitting up, but she sleeps until 3 AM.

She doesn’t scream when she wakes. She doesn’t move much, actually.

Because she’d been trained for situations like this.

But there is a sharp intake of air that makes her sides hurt and her teeth sink into her bottom lip.

Kurt wakes too, regardless.

His hand goes to the gun he’d set on the bed stand by his side, regardless.

She feels the pinching in her eyes from tears. Pain and nightmares were never a good combination. Nas does not cry, regardless.

The anger deep in her belly rises, but she pushes it down.

“What happened?” He asks, voice raspy from lethargy.

“Put it away, Kurt.” She sighs, drops a hand to his wrist and he seems a bit more alert at that. He puts the gun back down where he’d taken it from, sits up a bit so he can look at her.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, the medicine must be wearing off.”

“Want me to get another pack?”

“No, I’ll get it.”

“Like hell you are.”

He stands before she can argue and, of course, _she’s_ the stubborn one.

“Thanks.” She says as she takes the thing from his hands a minute later.

“Are you telling me what made you wake up or what?” Kurt settles back down and the bastard cannot let anything slide.

“Bad dreams, that’s all.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

She scoffs and gazes down at him. He’s serious. He’s serious and it hits her as if someone had just let go of a brick and her head had been conveniently under its falling line. He’s taking care of her. He is sleeping with a gun by his side. He woke up because she breathed too harshly. He got her something to take away her pain. He wants to _talk_ about her nightmare.

That anger flames again.

He doesn’t deserve it. And she regrets it as she says it, regrets it later too, but she says it.

“Why aren’t you with Jane?”

He’s still for a moment.

And so is she.

But he works his jaw for a couple of seconds, looks down at somewhere in the mattress before meeting her gaze again. Brown meeting blue. She’d always adored that. But the anger in her belly is too great for her to notice the butterflies.

“Let’s go back to sleep.”

“No, seriously. Why? You were in love with her. Everyone could tell.”

“She betrayed us.”

“So did I.” She says and she needs to shut up. Needs to put out the flames in her stomach because she doesn’t want to be alone and she doesn’t want him to leave. “Difference being in the fact that she had no idea of what she was doing.”

“You’re right.” He nods and she can see the sparks starting in his eyes as well. “But she was Taylor, and then Taylor was dead. So Jane was just that, Jane. And Mayfair was also dead.” Kurt stops at the mention of his deceased boss. “You were you. Through the betrayal. Through everything.”

“You were _in love_ with her.”

“A part of me will always be.” He laughs and it is bitter and makes a bit of the blaze inside of her go out. “But Jane and I don’t work. Not like it is supposed to.”

“And we do?” It’s her time to laugh. But her ribs hurt and the senator flashes in her mind and the bitterness Kurt had shown is not enough to keep that fire out.

“We fight like hell. More than I fought with Allie. But I still choose to come back.”

“You shouldn't. When Sandstorm is done, I’m leaving.” She isn’t sure of that. Because she trusts her team and she doesn’t trust the one she left at the NSA. She says it even so because she’s so angry.

“Why are you doing this?” He frowns, like she’s being insane and she knows, she knows he forgot for just a second of what went through in that small house.

“I’m _angry_.” Saying it out loud, it only makes her body seem ablaze. “I’m angry at you. And at that son of a bitch I killed today. It shouldn’t have happened, Kurt. I should have been smarter.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He sits up again and she reminds herself it’s three in the fucking morning and he has to work the next day. He _will_ work, goddamn it.

“Yeah? What about the training we have? The one where we learn to watch our backs? To not allow some crap like _that_ to happen?” Her breathing is hard and her ribs are killing her but she feels the bite behind her eyes once again. She’s so angry. She’d been so stupid. She should have known better. She _did_ know better and she still let a criminal kick the living crap out of her.

“That man you killed was a monster. We deal with bad guys every day, but not with _monsters_. They do things we can’t understand. It’s not your fault and he’s gone. You killed him.” He tries to lay a hand on her jaw and she lets him because he shouldn’t be there and she’s so freaking mad, but Kurt is Kurt and Nas is _not_ crying for a man she is not dating and she is _not_ crying for the life she took. She allows a few tears to roll because her body aches and the anger is too intense, she doesn’t want it melting her insides.

* * *

 

Her ribs take a month to heal and her doctor doesn’t let her go back into the field for exactly that amount of time.

Honestly, he is glad.

Because it takes her a while to sort herself out.

She snaps at him. More often than before and she has this heavy mist in her eyes that he works so hard on taking away.

Nas lets him sleep over for the first week after things went down.

On the second week, every other night.

On the third, when she is stubborn enough and decides to at least hang around the office, he only goes over on Monday and Friday.

Because she’s a nervous wreck by the end of the first day and a tired form when the week is done.

Not that she actually lets him see she’s not completely okay.

The thing is, they’ve been doing whatever it is they do for long enough for him to pick up the signs. Pick up when she rubs her hands together and when she pinches her mouth the slightest bit while she’s trying to think. It’s been going long enough for him to not say a thing, just follow her out the car.

When she gets the clearance to go along to locations, she’s so focused, so on the top of her game, that it seems everything is done. Over with. In the past.

But she doesn’t snicker when he makes a bad joke or eats pasta when they have to order take out or intercalates the days she wears that lock of hair down and when she pulls everything back.

So one day, she tells him she’s driving herself to work the next morning and that’s fine. What bothers him, though, is that she makes to leave the car without even a look in his direction.

“Can we talk?” He says before she closes the door behind herself. Nas sits back on her seat.

“You okay?” She looks at him and brown meets blue and she’s such a lovely sight that he can’t help but miss her.

“Listen, I don’t want this to sound-” He swallows, breathes. “Like pushing. I just- Are we good? I mean, us?”

“Us?”

“You and I. The seeing each other thing.”

She opens her mouth to say something back, but she stops, looks at him and the last time he’d seen her eyes this glassy was when she had big bruises across her body and woke up from a nightmare, angry, so angry.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t been the best company lately.” She chuckles, looks down.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know. I just needed to say it.” She gives him a tight smile, not the grieving one she'd given him when they talked about her brother. She gives him a tight smile that tells him she's trying, she lays a hand on his neck, leans over and kisses him. Softly. Just a touch of lips, but it tells him that she's trying and it gives him some relief.

Things settle when they are having lunch in his office and he gets a call and his heart starts beating faster.

Allie is having the baby.

He leaves and Nas tells him to text her. He nods. He nods and he sees the spark in her eyes as he gets into the elevators.

Allie swears through the contractions. And that boyfriend of hers is there, laughs every swing at him off.

Kurt is glad. Because Allie will always be important and Connor seems good to her.

“What's going on with you and Kamal?” The pregnant brunette asks him as they take a walk around the hall. The doctor says there are still some hours to go and the woman wants to keep moving. So they let her boyfriend nap and they walk.

He wants to ask what she's talking about, try to dismiss the question. But that's not how their relationship works.

“We're seeing each other.”

“Jane?”

“Seeing someone else, I guess.” He shrugs.

“Are you happy?” Allie stops for a moment. Looks at him and the woman has him in the palms of her hands, with those doe eyes and long lashes.

“Yeah.” He smirks because he is. Because Nas is trying and he remembers the spark in her gaze, mist gone, when he'd laughed that he was about to become a dad. “Are you?”

“Remember what you told me? I'm happy if you're happy.” She chuckles but stops a second later. “Except for right now, 'cause you're not the one pushing a six-pound thing through your parts.”

He snorts.

He's there when it happens and they have a boy. They have a beautiful, red, healthy-lunged boy. He is not sure he ever smiled so much as to when Allie passed his son over to him, small face twisting and little fingers closed into tight fists.

They'd talked about names. But hadn't decided.

He texts his sister and then he texts Nas when the baby is taken away to be checked out and Allie and Connor talk in hushed tones. The woman he’s _seeing_ asks him if he wants her to swing by.

“What do we call him?” Kurt sits by the foot of the bed and Allie looks exhausted.

“I was thinking about Sean.”

“That wasn't on our list.” He frowns. He likes the sound of the name anyhow.

“I know. It reminds me of Shaw.”

He nods, squeezes the woman's foot for a second.

 _Thank you_.

He gets to hold his son again. And Sean is asleep and quiet when he does so. His boy is almost bald. The few wisps on his tiny head are bright blonde. He's got this frown that Kurt knows people will relate to him, only because they hadn't seen sweet old Allie craving something.

He holds him until his mother wants him back.

He steps into the hall just as Nas turns the corner and by the way she looks at him, he's pretty sure he still has that stupid smile plastered on his face.

“How are they?” She says, stopping by his side.

“They are good. Resting.”

She nods, leans against the wall like he does.

“So. How is your _son_ like?”

Maybe he'll get a cramp from pulling his lips so much, but he smiles more and shows her a picture he'd managed to take.

She looks and looks at the screen, the softest expression in her face.

“He's a really, really cute, lucky kid.” Her gaze moves to him and he kisses her. Because he loves the way she says cute and loves the fact that his son exists and because he loves the way her palms rest against his chest.

And then, then it is September the 20th and he is walking home after running a few miles. He walks past a jewelry store a friend of his owns.

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, and it’s been awhile since he had felt like that in something related to her.

“It was time you showed up.” The man behind the counter says and John is someone Kurt doesn’t see often, but who seems to have a permanent smirk on his features.

“You know how work is.” He makes an excuse because the jewelry is relatively new and he had promised to swing by sometime.

“What can I do for you, Kurt?” John chuckles, shakes his head slightly.

“There’s this-” He stops, thinks about how to describe her. “Woman that I know, she had a watch that recently broke and I was thinking about getting her a new one.”

“Are you looking for the same or-?”

“The most similar possible. She was quite attached to it.”

“Well, do you have the model?”

He nods, says the name and John types in a computer.

“We don’t have those in storage, but I can place an order for you, if you’d like.”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

Kurt nods. Because Nas had said she never made a big deal out of her birthday and that’s her choice. He’s getting her something, nevertheless.

They make small talk as the man goes back to typing, John asking how life is going and Kurt talking about Sean.

“And his mom? Is that who the watch is for?”

They move over to the cashier, the store owner insisting on seeing every detail of the purchase through.

“Ah, no, no.”

“Damn, man.” John chuckles again and Kurt swears at him under his breath. “How long have you two been together, then?”

“We’re-” He shakes his head slightly, smiles shortly, passes his credit card over. “Not. We’re not together.”

“You’re buying her a replacement for her watch. If you’re not in a relationship, you definitely should be.”

“Why do I feel like I’m talking to your wife?” Kurt mocks, tries to change the subject because he isn’t sure what he’s doing or what that thing in his stomach is.

“Just saying. When Melissa and I met, I’d have done the same for her.”

Kurt leaves.

And he acts normal because there is nothing to not act normal about and because every single moment he is not at work and Allie is rested, he spends it with his son.

When he goes back to retrieve the gift, it weights in his hand.

October the first comes faster than he thought it would and, thankfully, she’s early in the office and the team has yet to arrive.

“You’re not going to make me regret telling you my birthday, are you?” She asks as a good morning, accepting the coffee he extends in her direction.

She’s partially perched on her desk, phone put to her side when he’d entered her office.

“I might. But regretting telling me information is not something new.” He smirks and she chuckles, sipping her drink.

She takes her coffee black, extra hot and strong. He likes kissing her after she drinks it, likes how her lips are warmer and she’s calm. He doesn’t know how that much caffeine makes her more calm, but he likes it.

“How’s the little guy?” Nas asks, eyes genuine and she’d only met Sean once, never held him, but goes out of her way to see if the boy is fine.

“Getting more alert by the day.”

He tells her about the night before, when the newborn had given him a bath instead of the other way around, kicking his small legs in the water like he was training for the Olympics.

She laughs and he adores her laugh and

_If you’re not in a relationship, you definitely should be._

“Can I say it?” He asks when the subject slows down and she rolls her eyes, nods. He stands and she straightens her posture. He hugs her. She hugs him back, lets her cheek rest on his shoulder. “Happy birthday.”

He knows they are at work, he knows that. But there’s still half an hour for the team to get there and he can’t help it, not when she feels warmer and calmer. He kisses the crown of her head.

“Thank you.” She gives him that tiny smile and the volume on his pocket seems to get heavier.

“I have something for you.”

Nas looks at him pointedly, his name in a soft reprehension as he pulls the leather box from his pants.

“I told you not to make a big deal out of it.”

“I’m not great at listening.”

She scoffs, takes the pack from his hand, lets her fingers graze his and their gazes meet for a long second before she pulls the lift.

“Kurt-”

“It’s not the same one. It’s not the one your brother gave you, but it’s the same model.”

She shakes her head, takes the watch out and passes her thumb over the glass. She doesn’t say anything. She hugs him again. And she kisses his jaw and he remembers how she’d seemed torn, looking at what used to be the one thing she’d wear every day. He remembers how he’d thanked God that it’d only been the object that had been broken in her wrestling with the suspect, not her wrist, not her arm.

As she unhooks the simpler watch she’d been wearing, he knows he should be quiet. He knows he can lose things if he talks but John’s voice still nags him.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Uhm?”

“Why did we decide not to have a relationship again?”

“Because I’m leaving.” She looks at him with a soft frown.

“But it may take a while.”

“Sandstorm is ready for an attack. I don’t think so, Kurt.”

“Wouldn’t it be worth it, though?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I like you. And you make me happy.” He steps closer to her, lays his hands on her upper arms and he doesn’t know what is happening, but he knows he wants it. “And we’re already acting like a couple.”

“I’m not good at relationships.”

“Neither am I.”

“And I’m not good at being happy.”

“You know my track history. I’m still here.” His thumbs caress her skin and she tilts her head the slightest bit, gazes at him and brown meets blue and he wants it. He wants things to move forward.

“Do you really want to date me?”

“Hell yeah.” He chuckles and she smirks and her eyes are soft, so incredibly soft.

“You’re stupid.”

“I know.”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yes, Kurt, fine. As you’ve said, we’re already acting like it.”

He scoffs.

 _Stubborn_.

He pecks her lips.

Leaves her office with a swing in his steps.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one asked, but you can follow me on twitter under @wickedkins


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter and I am officially going through a Blindspot withdrawal. Can't January 4th be here already?

She hadn’t expected to agree to it. To _dating_ him.

But she had.

She had because she was gazing up at him and his touch on her arms made her want to change things.

She hadn’t expected it to go right, either.

She hadn’t expected on sleeping over in his apartment and not even having sex. She hadn’t expected him to get Sean during a weekend and still say she should swing by. She hadn’t expected soft smiles and baths together and him stealing the covers when the weather started to turn.

“My sister is coming over for Thanksgiving.” He says one day as they stand in the bathroom, her starting to pin her hair in place and him still in his boxers and his dress shirt.

“That’s good. You haven’t seen her since Sean was born, right?”

“Yeah.”

He pulls two pins out of her bun and the whole thing falls back down.

“Kurt.” She warns and he snickers, places kisses on her neck.

“I like it when you let it loose.” He mumbles against her skin and she can feel the shivers beginning to run down her spine, she can’t quite prevent her head from leaning sideways, giving him more space.

“Good thing you don’t get to decide.”

“Please?” He gives her a light bite and she raises a hand to his nape.

“We’re going to be late.”

“Not if you say yes.”

“Well, I won’t.” She pulls away. Doesn’t know where she gets the strength to, but she does.

He shakes his head, leaves the bathroom and she gives herself a stern look while she places the pins back into the small bag she’d brought over with her toiletries.

She finds him in the bedroom, tying his shoes and when he gazes up at her, he smirks. She’s wearing a ponytail, which is as far as she’s willing to go.

Nas finishes getting ready. Puts on perfume, her earrings, the watch he’d given her.

“So, are you coming or what?”

“Where?” She frowns, looks at the clock on his bedstand and they still have twenty minutes to spare.

“To meet my sister.”

She stops for a second, her heart tugging.

“I didn’t realize you were inviting me.”

“I am.” He smiles, stands, ready to go in half the time she had taken.

“I have to see if my mum won’t be expecting me.”

“I thought she didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

“She doesn’t.” Nas tilts her head, chuckles because why is she trying to find an excuse?

“It’s settled, then?” Kurt asks taking a few steps in her direction.

“Alright.”

She hadn’t expected to meet his family, his beloved Sarah.

She hadn’t expected to be welcomed by the woman, either. To get along with Sawyer.

She hadn’t expected Sean to be there or that the boy would start crying when Kurt was next door helping the neighbour lift something and Sarah was in the bathroom and she was the only adult around to pick up the baby.

Nas was not expecting to be able to settle the child down or the way Kurt looked at her when he came back and Sean was almost asleep.

“He’s almost down.” She whispers when he comes up to her, stops in a way he can be behind her, peek over her shoulder. “Think he just wanted to be held.”

Kurt kisses her cheek, squeezes her hips softly where his hands had been resting before he goes over to the kitchen, sees if the food is ready.

Sawyer says the prayers and she bowls her head out of respect. The man she is _dating_ isn’t that religious, but his sister apparently is a bit more than him.

They eat and he keeps cracking joke after joke and Sarah tells her this story of when they were little and Kurt had to dress up as a carrot for Halloween because he wouldn’t eat his vegetables.

She watches as he turns this bright shade of red and she lays a hand on his knee under the table, her chuckles muffled.

“Thanks for inviting me.” She whispers as his sister goes to get something in the guestroom and his nephew is busy with his videogame.

“You’re welcome, but it’s not over yet.”

He walks away, goes to his own bedroom as Sarah is coming back, dreadful holiday sweater on and another one in hand. The blonde handles the garment to her son and Nas watches as, two minutes later her freaking _boyfriend_ comes down the hall dressed in a similar outfit, holding a piece of cloth too.

“Taylor would always wear it and we kinda kept the tradition.” He explains with a smile, giving her what is clearly a spare sweater of his to put on.

As she pulls the red fabric over her head, it falls to her mid thighs and he takes her hand, guides her to the living room where Sarah sits on the couch and Sawyer puts a disc into the DVD player.

They watch Miracle on 34th Street and she’s getting too used to nestling her head on his shoulder and her bent legs a bit over his own. But they still settle down like that and Sarah gives them this bright smile the only time the blonde looks in their direction.

Dating Weller wasn’t something she was expecting. Feeling like seeing him everyday, not quicking him out when they fought, was not something she was expecting.

“Are you going to Patterson's thing tomorrow?” She asks moisturising her arms when they are getting ready to sleep.

“Thought we both were.”

“Well, if you weren't going I wasn't sure I would, either.”

“Are we joined at the hip now?”

“I just-”

“I'm joking” He chuckles, getting under the covers and kissing her cheek. “It's a housewarming. I think it'd be good to show up.”

“Don’t you think they are moving kinda fast, though? How long have they been going out?”

“Almost a year, I think. But it’s good for her to let someone in.”

“Yeah.” She says, looking at him and how had she let him in? How had she opened up?

She leans over, kisses him because she can. And they make out and they do other things because they can and being close to him makes her heart race.

It’s almost unsaid, the way they decide to go together _together_ to Patterson’s and Borden’s new apartment. Jane had been called for a get together of sorts from Sandstorm, so Kurt feels free enough to take her hand as they climb up the few stairs.

They greet the team with their fingers laced and she sees the way the blonde tech smiles, glows with a sort of happiness so uniquely hers.

Nas envies that, being able to be fun and innocent in the most honest way.

“So, are you official?” Zapata asks when they are quietly talking in the corner, Kurt discussing football with Reade in front of the TV.

“Uhm…” She sips her drink, doesn’t blush because she does not do that sort of thing. “Yeah.”

“About time.”

“You knew?” She almost chokes and the woman to her side snickers.

“We're very good at our jobs” Tasha says, a smirk on her lips. “I’m happy for you two.”

“Thank you.”

“But if you hurt him-”

“Oh, sod off.” She rolls her eyes and Tasha scoffs, finishes her beer.

She hadn’t expected to be accepted by the team. She hadn’t expected to want them to accept her and Kurt.

And when they are in the field and things go downhill, when Kurt isn’t wearing a vest and tries to reach her (because she is alone and cornered and she’s only got one bullet left), she hadn’t expected him to get shot. Or that her heart would sink.

Jane takes the guy out, the last of the nine that had attacked them. And then there is silence and it only takes her a second to realize it before she’s running towards Kurt, lying on the ground clutching his shoulder.

He is bleeding. He is bleeding so much and she feels her hands trembling as she applies pressure to the injury, barely hears Jane calling the shooting in, requesting an ambulance.

She keeps telling him he’s fine and he keeps nodding, hand over hers. She doesn’t know how long it takes for her to hear the sirens. But she hears it when it’s close enough and she smiles at him, tells him they are going to the hospital. His brow is sweaty, but he is conscious and he keeps a clutch on her fingers as they take him in the gurney.

Nas spares Jane a glance, looks down at Kurt and she can’t go. She hadn’t realized it until then, but she can’t go with him because there are reports to be made and people to talk to and Jane is only a consultant, doesn’t have the authority to do any of it.

So she leans down, close to his ear.

“I’m going to sort things out here and I’ll be right over, alright?”

He tries a smirk, says alright back and she asks Jane to go in the ambulance.

She concentrates in her job. It’ll only give her a headache later if she doesn’t do things properly.

And besides, Kurt is fine.

He’s fine. It was a through and through.

She keeps telling herself that as an IMT hands her a wipe to clean her hands. Stained red from blood.

She takes the SUV they had arrived in, drives herself to the hospital and Tasha is outside the sliding doors when she parks.

“Any news?” Nas asks and her voice is cool, like it always is but her heart flickers and her breathing is slightly slower than it should be.

“He got out of surgery a while back. We tried calling you.”

“My phone died.”

“Jane is in with him, but you should go in.”

Her steps are hurried. But Zapata doesn’t say a word, just keeps up with her.

When her knuckles knock against the door, she is almost too impatient to hear the _come in_.

“I’ll give you two some space.”

Jane says it, almost jumping out of her place by his bed. Nas sees the wetness in the woman’s eyes as they cross ways.

She walks over to Kurt and he has this soft smirk on his face, touches her arm as soon as she’s close enough.

“Never do that again.”

“You know I will if I have to.”

“You could have _died_.”

“So could you.”

The prickling behind her eyes makes her look away, tighten her jaw.

“I can’t handle you dying.”

He tries sitting up, manages to despite her telling him to lie still.

He pats the space vacated by his hip and she sits because he’s gazing at her with those eyes and brown meets blue and she can’t handle him dying.

“I’m okay, Nas.” Kurt says, fingers creating a pattern against her upper arm. “I’m alright.”

“You can’t be this reckless anymore. You have a son, a family. They need you.”

She doesn’t say the rest because she doesn’t need to. He runs his palm up from where it caresses her, until it rests on her neck. He pulls her closer and lays his lips on her. His are dry but it’s still him. It still is stubborn, brave, idiot Kurt.

“It was a great romantic scene, though, right?” He smirks.

She shakes her head, chuckles and plays with his fingers, now resting on her lap.

She had expected a lot of things, but none of them included falling for that man.

* * *

 

Being a constant target is not something he particularly enjoys about his job. Seeing Nas with wide eyes and hands trying to keep him from bleeding out is definitely something he hates about his line of duty.

Waking up after surgery and finding Jane standing over him, a broken expression on her face, is something that makes his belly drop.

“You’re awake.” She smiles and, honestly, he could do with less bright lights.

“Yeah.” He manages to scrap out, moving his legs a bit, trying to roll his good shoulder.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve just been shot.”

She scoffs softly, lays her hand atop his.

There’s silence. And a while back he didn’t mind being silent with Jane, didn’t mind having her touching him.

It’s not like he gets sick in her presence, he doesn’t think that can happen, not when it comes to her. But his heart had tugged and tugged for her, for Jane, for the lost cause, for Taylor.

He’d loved her. For who she might have been, for who she was.

He’d started loving her because of Taylor, had continued to love her because of Jane and Jane’s personality and confusion and complications.

“I thought you we’re going to die.”

“I didn’t.”

“You were trying to save _her_. And it was so incredibly foolish and fearless and I wished it was me. I wished you were trying to save _me._ ”

“Jane-”

“I know it won’t happen. I know _us_ is not on the table anymore. I just-” She closes her eyes, takes her hand away and he wants to wipe her tears. But he doesn’t. Because he _had_ loved her. “I don’t know how to move on from you.”

He sighs. And he looks at those bright lights he wished would diminish and he tries to wrap his mind around this conversation, around Jane and finally putting an end to it.

“When this is over, when Sandstorm is done, you’ll find a life outside these wars. You’ll find the things you like and the things you don’t.” It’s his turn to wrap his fingers around her palm, to get her gaze back. “And you’ll move on. With _your_ life. You’ll find someone to share that with you, eventually.”

“Like you did?” She tries and he thinks of Nas, in a body-hugging purple dress, Nas kicking him out when he’d been an idiot, Nas angry, so so so angry. He thinks about her and yeah, he wants to say, like I did.

He doesn’t. Because Jane would always be Jane and he could never do that to her.

“I did love you, you know?” He says and she nods, gives him a tight smile and cleans her tears with her free hand. “But it’s not a kind of love I can afford.”

“I know.” She nods again, whispering and he wants to hug her, but it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be right because he thinks she wants that too and their situation is a mess, they are trying to tidy it up by having this talk. So hugging her would spread things more. “I don’t think I could, either.”

They don’t get to say anything else and maybe it is enough for the time being.

Someone knocks on the door and he tells the person to come in.

Nas steps in and he can see Tasha in the background. Jane startles at the women’s entrance, jumps back from him and leaves in a hurry.

Touching Nas is something he eagers for. So he lays his fingers on her arm and she looks so worried that he wants to touch her completely.

He leaves the hospital on the next day. Because It's already late and Nas puts her hands on her hips and looks at him in that way she has saved specially for when he's being stupid.

She is there early to pick him up and, thankfully, thankfully the director obligated her and Jane to take the day, Kurt not even having an option.

She brings over a bag to his place and he chuckles looking at it.

“Why don’t you just leave some things here? It’s easier than carrying it around.”

Nas bites her lower lip for a moment before nodding.

“My mum asked me to come over for Christmas.” She says as he watches the game and she reads a book.

“She doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving but celebrates Christmas?”

“Neither of those, actually, but since I get the day off, she uses it as an excuse.”

“At least she tries.” He smiles at her because she’d told him once, when they were in a bar, that she and her mother were a bit estranged.

“Yeah.”

A few minutes go by and he swears at the players.

“So, I was wondering if you’d like to come with?”

He sets his empty beer bottle down, gazes at her and she still has her eyes fixed on those damn pages. It’s important to her. That he goes.

“Of course.”

She smiles the slightest bit.

But she doesn’t when she’s putting on a bright blue dress and climbing on her heels and making sure her hair is perfectly straight.

Kurt comes over behind her, hugs her waist because she is nervous. She has this frown going on and she shouldn’t have.

“You look beautiful.”

“Thanks. But I still have to finish.” She slips out of his grasp but he catches her hand, turns her so brown meets blue.

“No, not before you breathe.”

“I’m fine.”

“Whatever she says, it doesn’t define you.”

Her jaw tightens.

“I know that.”

“I see you every day. And you’re smart and great at your job. And you have this big heart that you don’t let people see.” He lays his palm on her cheek and the corners of her lips pull an inch. “Our parents, they don’t get to stop our lives.”

He remembers his dad and that silver ghost it’d taken so long to shake off.

Nas nods, leans over and kisses him. Her arms wrap around his neck, her forehead rests against his when she pulls away.

“You’re a good person.” She says. “He didn’t get to screw you up.”

“Neither did she.”

As she drives there, Nas tells him her mom is called Aisha and that he should ignore it if the woman bites remarks at her.

She rings the doorbell and he is surprised when he feels her fingers lace through his.

“Hi mum.” Her smile is forced, he can see it and he bets so can Aisha, but, well, his _mother-in-law_ doesn’t seem phased by it.

“Merry Christmas.” The short woman says, stepping up to hug her daughter.

“This is Kurt.” Nas says, looking at him.

He knows how to be pleasant. So he makes good remarks and is polite and keeps his hand in Nas’ hold.

“It’s been a long time since Nas brought anyone over with her.” Aisha says one moment, as they all sit around the living room.

“I haven’t had time to meet anyone.”

“Nice to know I’m special, then.” He smirks and she rolls her eyes and the greying woman sitting on the armchair across from them fixes her gaze on Kurt.

“Yes, I do wonder how you make things work, running after criminals like that.”

“We get some free time once in a while.”

A beep goes off in the kitchen before Aisha can continue and the woman excuses herself to go cheek the oven.

“Told you she was brutal.” Nas mumbles, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“So far, so good.” He leans over, takes her fingertips away. “Listen, she doesn’t have to approve us. You and me, we’re the ones in this relationship.”

“After -uhm- after my brother passed and dad took off, I guess she just didn’t want me to go off track.” He sees her swallowing and takes a quick glance towards the kitchen area, makes sure her mother isn’t coming back. “And I get it, but she always has a comment and is not shy on words.”

“You’re the only one she has left. That’s okay. But it doesn’t excuse being cruel.”

“I know.” She nods and it’s so rare of her, to open up when they aren’t in either of their apartments, or at a bar, but Nas telling him these small, secretive information is something he doesn’t question, doesn’t complain about. “She’s still my mum, though.”

Dinner goes smooth up until dessert.

Because he gets a call from Allie, where the woman tells him she’s got a break in a case and Connor is out of town and so is the sitter. So Allie asks him to take their son for the night and of course he will, of course.

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” He says, walking back to the table and Nas nods, leads him to the parlor.

“It’s everything okay?”

“Allie has to go in and there’s no one to look after Sean. She asked me to take him.”

“Oh, alright. Will she drop him off or do you need to go?”

“Well, I was kinda worried it’d be too much for your mother to meet me _and_ my son in one go.”

“Honestly, both of us leaving would be worse than that.”

“I’ll tell her to drop him off then.” He nods, taking his phone out to type a message.

It’s close to midnight when Allie calls back, tells him she’s a couple of seconds out and she really needs to hurry.

He gets the diaper bag and Nas gets Sean and when they step inside the house again, Aisha has an unreadable gaze.

“I think someone needs a change.” He chuckles when he’s picking up his son out from Nas’ hold. His mother-in-law points out a spare bedroom he can use to change the boy and it is close enough to the living room and his ears are well enough trained for him to hear the women’s conversation.

“Thought you’d be smarter than to play house.”

“Mother-”

“I know he seems to make you happy, sweetheart, but a man with a child is not a good deal.”

“Who says it has to be a good deal? I like him, mum. And his son is great.”

“But you’re not his mother.”

“He doesn’t need a mother. He already has one. And a very good one, at that. I’m with Kurt. And I just wished you’d see how good he is to me.”

“I do see it.”

He hears Aisha’s tone. How it changes, how it becomes resigned and when he comes out, Sean clean and batting his big lashes, Nas picks the baby back again as good measure.

When the fireworks start and his son starts crying, he’s surprised to see the house’s owner offering to calm the child down.

“Merry Christmas.” He mumbles, kissing his _girlfriend_.

“Merry Christmas.” She says against his mouth.

They take Sandstorm down on New Year’s Eve. It isn’t planned. But Shepherd tells Jane that it will be it, that they have things sorted out.

Roman turns.

That is something no one had expected. The man asks Jane to tell the FBI, to ask their help in stopping their mother.

They fight for what feels like hours. Jane following Shepherd inside a building while the rest of the team is worried about taking out hidden gunmen.

Nas is the first one to get a clear enough territory to go after stepmother and daughter.

Kurt doesn’t see how things play out. He is disappointed by that aspect.

But a backup agent shoots the last man targeting them and he gets to follow Jane’s path, Reade and Zapata hot on his heels.

The place is dark, but the gunshots guide them. Until every noise stops. It scares him. It scares him down to his last bone because there are two women he cares deeply for and both could be dead.

And then there is a single shot and things go back to radio silence.

“Nas, Jane, where are you?” He shouts into his earpiece and it takes another call of the NSA Agent’s name for him to get a reply.

She tells him that they are fine, they are good, informs him in which room they are at and is like his feet can’t carry him fast enough.

When they find the rest of their team, Shepherd is dead, hole in her chest and Jane is curled up in a corner, face hidden behind her hands, Nas kneeled down beside her, talking in whispers.

They stay up through the night. Getting checked out and inspecting the area where Sandstorm had been based and doing paperwork.

Around 4 AM, he finally sees Jane. And Nas is still beside her.

The green-eyed woman doesn’t want to talk to him, leaves the room when his words first leave his mouth.

“She’s quite banged up.” Nas tells him, sighing.

“She killed one of the few people that, in a way or another, was her family. It must be hard.”

“I’m trying to make sure she knows it was the right call but-” The brunette shakes her head and he sits beside her on that bench they have in a corner of the locker room. “I don’t think she wants to.”

“Jane’s in her own place right now. Give her a couple of days.”

“We’re all taking a couple of days, actually. Pellington’s replacement’s orders.”

“Still can’t believe he was in with Sandstorm.”

“Not everyone is who we think they are.”

They finish getting things done around 8 AM and she asks him to come over to her place.

“I need to sleep.” He sighs, sitting on her bed and starting to unbutton his shirt.

“We need a bath.” She says, dropping a towel on his lap. “Please don’t take too long.”

“Trust me, I won’t.” He stands, drops a kiss on her forehead as he walks around her.

Later, she comes out of the bathroom with damp hair and one of his shirts on and he only sees that for a second, dozing off as soon as she lies down next to him.

The alarm goes off and he’s always been a lighter sleeper than she is, so he wakes up soon enough to silence the device and still let her get a few more minutes of rest.

He looks at her. Doesn’t touch her, but looks.

He’s glad Sandstorm is over, he’s glad they managed to stop that plan.

But he knows what it means. Of course he does.

It means Jane won’t be a consultant anymore, probably will go into witness protection.

And it means that Nas will be leaving soon. It means she’ll probably go back to Maryland, NSA’s headquarters.

He doesn’t want her to, being completely honest.

Because a distant relationship is not something they can do. Is not something that will work out for them.

Not because he doesn’t like her enough.

_Liking_ is not even a word he uses that much anymore.

He adores her, loves her.

He doesn’t say that last one either, but he thinks it more often than _like_.

She starts shifting and he knows she’s about to wake up, has this telltale sign of bringing her hand up to rest just beside her head on the pillow.

It takes her a minute to open her eyes, but she does and when they focus, they focus on him.

“Hi.” She says after a while, voice raspy.

“Hi.”

“I wish we could nap a bit more.” Nas stretches then turns to her side, facing him.

He nods, doesn’t reply. And he hadn’t touched her while she was asleep, but he touches her then, rests his palm on her waist.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Uhm?”

“I didn’t think I’d make it out of this alive.”

“Out of Sandstorm?” She frowns, playing with the hair on the base of his nape and it takes him back to their first date.

“I was connected to it since we learned it existed. If it went down, I thought I would go down with it.”

“You didn’t.” Her head shakes and she has this look, this vulnerable, raw look. She’s figured out she’s leaving, too. “I think that’d be more likely to happen for your stubborn head than because of them.”

“There was a point-” He says, swallows. He hadn’t told people about it, he hadn’t even figured it out himself. “That if it weren’t for my sister, I didn’t think I’d care much if they took me out.”

“Listen to me.” She says, voice intense, eyes on his. “If anyone did not deserve having those people after them, that person was you.”

It’s not completely true, he knows it and she knows it, but when they are this close and when they had the face off they did, it’s easier to say things just for comfort.

He leans over, lays his lips atop hers and she pulls him closer, has this calm vibe about her that it almost feels like it does when she has coffee.

They don’t go further than kissing. And he likes that. Likes roaming his hands through safe places, her back, her shoulder blades, the back of her thighs.

He likes having her lying beside him.

He doesn’t like the prospect of having to talk about her _leaving_.

They spend the rest of the day in bed. Watching Tv and talking and he doesn’t want her to leave. Because, otherwise, who is going to throw a pillow at him when he gives snarky replies?

“Patterson wants to have a trivia game to celebrate.” He tells her as he reads the message, multitasking while setting the table for dinner.

“Seriously?”

“Apparently, Reade and Tasha are in, Jane is not replying and they are waiting on us.”

“Are you up for it?”

“Sure, it’s fun to see Reade mad.”

“Alright, then.”

“Do you think I should call Jane?”

“I don’t know, Kurt. Maybe.”

He nods, texts the lab tech back.

Their take out arrives and she eats pasta, that soft hidden smile on her face.

“Go call her, I’ll clean up.” Nas says, retrieving their plates.

Kurt steps into the guest bedroom, mind heavy because he wants Jane to forgive herself, wants her to be happy. Desperately.

He tries her safe house but it only rings and rings.

He tries it twice.

And then calls her cell.

She answers on the third time he dials the number.

“Hey.”

Her voice is small. So small and he wishes, in that moment, that they were in a good enough place that he could hug her.

“How are you?”

“I’m trying.”

“You know you did everything you could, right?”

“That’s what everyone tells me, but did I? If I’d tried to turn her, like Roman, maybe-”

“Jane, she wouldn’t have turned on the mission. She hated this country. But it’s over now.”

“And somehow I’m back to the beginning.”

“What do you mean?”

“Roman has this sad look every time I’m close to him and the woman who adopted us is dead. And you are long gone and the team- I’m not a part of it anymore. I’m alone, Kurt. Again.”

“Hey, don’t say that. You’re not alone. You’ll never be.” He shakes his head, sighs. “Even if we don’t work together anymore, you’ll always be a part of this team. And your brother will understand, like we did, but it won’t happen overnight either.”

“I’m tired, Kurt.”

“Well, now you can finally rest.”

He hears her sniffing on the other side and his chest seems to weigh a thousand pounds.

“I love you.” She says.

He stops. Because he’s tired, too.

“Me too, Jane.”

She hangs up and he knows she is not showing up the next day, but Patterson still puts an extra glass aside.

* * *

 

It’s like they are back to the beginning, after Sandstorm goes down.

Not _right_ in the beginning. Not when he would make her so so mad and look like a petulant child.

It’s like when they first started sleeping together.

Every opportunity they get, their hands find each other.

It starts on the day they are supposed to go to Patterson’s to _celebrate_.

She wakes up to him kissing her neck, a hand on her waist and his chest almost touching her back.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” He says, but she turns, lies flat on her back and he smiles down at her, waits a minute before kissing her completely.

A kind of fire starts in her chest, spreads and spreads until she’s panting under him, her nightdress pooled around her belly, his flannel pants already pushed down.

And it goes on to their shower, to her feeling this desire to kiss him when he’s pulling a shirt over his head.

They arrive late at Paterson because of that.

She apologizes but she doesn’t think the scientist really minds, a wide smile brightening her fair expression.

“Now that the case is over, does that mean you’re leaving?” Reade asks as they all sit around the living room, waiting on Zapata and Jane.

(Kurt had told her not to count on it, on Jane showing up, but Nas had been the one standing at gunpoint when the tattooed woman had made the call on taking Shepherd’s life. So she hopes, for the sake of Jane, that the brunette does show)

“I’m not sure exactly when but-” She swallows, doesn’t look at Kurt because her heart clenches and everything that happened was completely out of her plan. “Yes.”

“It was nice having you around.” The man says, shifts his gaze and she'd come to appreciate him, his subtle admiration of others.

When Tasha arrives, they wait another half an hour for Jane before Kurt says they should get started.

The tension around the room lasts until Zapata has to answer a science question and gets frustrated and flicks Edgar the finger when he starts chuckling.

It's fun. Better than she'd have imagined and when Borden tells a joke and Patterson chokes on her beer while giggling, Nas laughs hard enough for tears to leak from her eyes.

Two hours later, she feels light and happy and Robert asks Kurt to make a toast. The man to her side is coy, but nods.

“To be honest, sometimes I wished this case had never landed in our hands. Maybe we wouldn't have lost so much otherwise. And I'm not really good at this, but something that now I can see is that everything happens for a reason. I can't say that I understand _why_ , but we have to accept things that are done.” He swallows and she watches as everyone agrees with a cast of eyes. “Sandstorm made us _better_ , made us closer. For me, at least, it proved that you all became my family. We got through it. Together. And I don't think there would be any better company to go through hell with then you all.”

Their team smiles and she feels his hand on her waist, can identify the thing, deep inside her, that flares when he touches her.

“Mayfair would be proud of you, Kurt.” Tasha says and Nas watches as her boyfriend, proud and stubborn gains a peculiar spark to his gaze.

They clink glasses and take a sip and he pulls her closer, kisses her forehead and she doesn't mind, doesn't think the people around them do either.

When they leave, she tells him she needs to go to her apartment, get some fresh clothes and he seems defeated, but drives to her building anyhow.

“Goodnight.” She unlocks her seatbelt when he parks and he answers in kind, eyes calm.

She knows what that thing, deep inside her belly is and it makes her want to cry.

Because she loves him and they shouldn't have started something _good_ , something permanent when they both knew it couldn't be.

She leaves the car and she tries to sleep that night, but she can’t.

So when her clock shows five A.M, she calls him.

He picks up after three rings and she guesses he didn’t sleep, either.

“Hi.” Nas says and her jaw is tight because she _loves_ him and she’s leaving soon.

“Hey.” He sighs and she hears shuffling, like he’s moving around and she wishes she had told him to spend the night. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah. Just can’t sleep.”

He chuckles and they talk and when she looks at her clock, it’s almost six in the morning already.

“I think I’m going to swing by the office later. Get my things together.”

Kurt doesn’t answer right away and she wants him to say that she doesn’t need to rush, but instead he says that she should come over during lunch, that he’d order that salad she likes from the restaurant nearby.

So by noon she’s stepping out of her shower and by one she’s walking in on the building she worked in for the past year.

Reade nods in her direction and Tasha waves her hand and Kurt is nowhere in sight.

So she goes into his office, sits in a visitor's chair and waits.

Five minutes later she gazes up to see Jane walking in.

She gives the woman a small smile because working with Jane and getting to know Kurt had showed her how to see the brunette through the man’s eyes.

And, of course, that whole Shepherd thing had made her throat tight and her heart go out for the one she wanted to think as only their asset.

“Hi.”

Jane nods in greeting.

“How are you?” She asks and the tattooed woman seems to think, seems to try to find the words but eventually goes with

“Is Kurt around?”

“Haven’t seen him yet, but he should be coming over soon enough.”

“Oh.” Jane shifts her gaze to the ground for a moment, nods again, motions backwards with her thumb. “I’ll just wait outside, then.”

“Jane?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you wait here?”

Her eyes meet the green ones and it takes a couple of seconds before she hears a soft _okay_ and the brunette sits in the vacant chair to her side.

Nas gives time. Almost a minute, actually. But she worries.

“I don’t know how you’ll receive this from _me_ , but I agree with you. People _can_ change. You certainly did. You’re not Remy, anymore. And you did the right thing. You saved millions of lives.”

“I’m not Remy, but am I supposed to be Jane Doe forever?” It’s a whisper and the woman beside her leans forward, resting slim elbows against knees. Rubbing her face.

“Who do you want to be, then?”

“Is it crazy if I said an agent?”

Nas manages a chuckle, shakes her head.

“No, not at all.”

“I know I can’t. But this is the one thing I’m confident about.”

“And you should be.”

“I just wanted to have a good past, you know?” Jane sighs, gives her a side glance.

“And what if you did? Do you think you’d have such a will to fight? To decide your own life?”

There’s silence and she spots a tiny, tiny, tiny smirk on the pale face.

“How are things?” The brunette asks, sitting up straight, changing subjects. “Between you two?”

“Ah-” She hesitates. Because she knows Kurt and Jane are over, she knows he is with _her_ , but a broken love hurts like a bitch.

“Nas, I’m asking as a friend. I mean-” Jane frowns for a second, smirks completely. “Are we friends?”

“As much as I know how to maintain those.”

They chuckle and it is the easiest going conversation they’ve ever had.

“So?”

“We’re good, I guess. He’s really great.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Never seen you blush before.”

“I don’t blush.”

“Tell that to your cheeks.”

She rolls her eyes. Looks out the glass walls and sees Kurt making his way towards them, plastic bags in his hold.

He frowns when he sees them both, but she stands, tells Jane to take her time talking to the man before exiting the room and meeting him halfway.

“Everything okay?” He lays a hand on her arm, looks at her worried and if they weren’t standing in the middle of the common area, she would have kissed him.

“Yeah.” She nods, gives him a smile and she wonders how the other agents must look at her, openly beaming at Kurt Weller, the same man she was arguing with not even a week previously. “I’m gonna go sort a few things in my office, maybe seal some files. Come over once you’re done?”

“Okay.”

“Alright.”

It takes him twenty minutes and she manages to box some briefcases before he comes along.

“Is she okay?” Nas asks, setting things aside so they can eat.

“Wanted to know what’s next now.” He shrugs, starts taking two salad cartoons out of one bag before pulling Styrofoam ones from the other.

They settle down and she likes sharing meals with him.

And she’s leaving.

They can’t keep their hands off each other.

Is like they are back to the beginning.

So when they finish their plates, he’s got thirty minutes of lunch left and she walks over to the sliding doors, hits the button that locks them down and when she sits back down, it is on his lap.

He wraps his arms around her waist and she loves him, loves how he gazes up at her with a soft smirk and loves the way he doesn’t ask what she’s doing, just pulls her closer when she lays her lips over his.

Kissing him, unpretentiously, is something that makes her heart beat a bit faster and makes her chest liquid and the fact that they are running out of time slip away from her mind.

They pull away after long moments and her lips are tender and she feels a kind of emotion that hits her deep down her belly.

“It’s like we’re on borrowed time.” He says and she looks at him and nods, pecks him before resting her head on his shoulder.

Her phone rings seconds later and she is forced to stand up, answer it because it’s her boss who’s calling.

Kurt unlocks her door while she pays attention to the person talking to her.

“I have a meeting with my boss in two days.” She sighs after hanging up, rubs her temple with her free hand. “In Maryland.”

He doesn’t say a thing at first, but then nods, crosses his arms.

“How long will you be gone?”

“A day, I think. The meeting should take most of the afternoon and I’ll probably get a redeye back.”

By the end of his work hours, she’s done packing up her office and she leaves without talking to him.

Things are stiff up until she has to go to the airport, but he drops her off and kisses her goodbye and she ignores the tight squeeze on her chest.

Nas was never particularly good at being happy.

But with him, she usually is.

The last relationship she had, ended with the man telling her to only come back when she’d made up her mind.

But the thing that her last boyfriend hadn’t realized was that her mind was already made up. She didn’t feel the urge to go back to him, to call him up when they fought.

She fights Kurt Weller almost every week and yet, not talking to him is the same as asking her not to love her mother despite everything.

And that is why she lets relief wash over her at the end of her meeting with the Deputy Director.

That is why she bites her lip and can’t manage to distract herself on her plane ride back to New York.

She should go to her apartment, rest, but she rings Kurt’s doorbell and he answers in sweatpants and a t shirt.

“Hey, why didn’t you call me? Would’ve picked you up.” He lets her in, drops a kiss to her forehead. “Things went okay?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I can sign anything else for a few days, at least.” Kurt smiles at her, goes to his fridge and takes out a beer she thinks it’s meant for her, his own sitting on his center table.

She doesn’t know if she should wait. If she should think better about what she’s going to say.

“Did you decide on anything?”

“Zero Division is being relocated.” She waits a beat and he nods, doesn’t meet her eyes. “To New York.”

She can’t help her smile and brown meets blue and his gaze is wide.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” She smiles bigger, tries to keep the bubbly laughter in. “They want us to monitor for any other activities that match Sandstorm's M.O. in case they try to regroup.”

He puts the bottle down on the counter, seems to try to assimilate the information for a few seconds.

“You’re staying?” He frowns, walking to her.

“I’m staying.”

He kisses her.

Frames her face and kisses her and she laces her arms around his neck and he hugs her so tight that he’s supporting more of her weight than her own feet.

“I’m staying.” She whispers when they pull away for a moment. She keeps repeating it between kisses as he walks them backward and when they miscalculate a few steps and her back hits the threshold instead of keep moving towards the bedroom, he apologizes and she laughs and she hasn’t felt so happy in such a long, long time that she almost feels like her lungs are melting away.

She doesn’t get tired of it.

Of getting rid of clothes in a haste, of kissing and kissing and kissing him until her lips are tender. She doesn’t get tired of having him all around her, of his voice in her ear and her fingertips on his back and his fingers trying to untangle her hair from her bun.

She doesn’t get tired of it.

Of cleaning up the mess and putting on one of his shirts and sharing a pillow with him because his arm grows numb if she lies over it for too long and they want to be close, she wants to feel him next to her.

She doesn’t get tired of it.

Of him.

And it’s like they are back to the beginning, but a new one. A new beginning where they fight and bicker as always but they share a bed more often than not, sometimes in her place and sometimes in his. A new one where she leaves things in his apartment, no longer in a small bag, but placed on the sink beside his stuff. Where he helps her clear space in her closet for some of his clothes and keeps asking her to try pieces on before putting it on the donation pile.

“You just want to see me naked.”

“Maybe.”

It’s like they are back to the beginning, and she feels her heart kicking up its pace every time brown meets blue.

* * *

 

The first who notices something is shifting, is Zapata. She doesn’t comment on it.

When she sees Weller coming in with a jewelry bag in hand, when she sees him desperately trying to hide it when he spots Nas in his office, she keeps quiet, but she smiles.

When their ex colleague waves goodbye to her, Tasha returns in kind.

She doesn’t comment on it.

Until Kurt stops by her side to ask her something and she meets Reade’s gaze across her desk, a silent encouragement in his eyes.

“So, are you gonna pop the question or what?”

Her boss seems startled for a moment, falls over his words before

“Yeah.”

“Fucking finally. Four years is a long ass time.”

Kurt chuckles, hides away in his office for the rest of the day and when he does ‘ _pop the question_ ’, she’s got a camera hidden in her blouse button because no way in hell will she lose the opportunity to prove that, _yes_ , _Kamal does blush_.

“Damn, post-it notes can take you a long way.” Patterson comments beside her and Tasha smiles because the tech is right and what else is new?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all who gave this ship a try and left kudos. Don't forget to tell me your thoughts. See ya on the next story (probably Tasha/OC? Dunno yeat but anyways).

**Author's Note:**

> Just so there are no doubts, every line that is crossed is a new POV.  
> See you next chapter.


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